Tag Archives: highways

I have not used Circumferential Road 6 in a while. And so a couple of weeks ago, I was happy to see that work has resumed on the sections at Lupang Arenda in Taytay, Rizal, which is also known as Sampaguita Street. Here are some photos of the wide C-6 section. I guess there’s an opportunity here to have service roads on either side of the highway in order to manage/control local traffic. C-6, after all, is a highway and is designed for typical national highway speeds (i.e., 60 kph). The adjacent land use, however, requires slower traffic mainly due to safety concerns.

Cordoned-off section where a contractor is preparing the sub-base prior to placing the steel reinforcement and pouring concrete

Another photo of the section showing form works for the slab. Note the parked vehicles along the side on the left.

Some sections are already flooded from the heavy rains

The completed section towards Nagpayong, Pasig is a wide 4 lanes. At left is a nice view of the Laguna de Bai.

Section to Nagpayong near the boundary of Taytay, Rizal and Pasig City.

That’s a habal-habal (motorcycle taxi) terminal on the left and in front of a parked jeepney.

Two very important things about C-6 though. One concerns the Barkadahan Bridge over the Manggahan Floodway, which is too narrow for the traffic that cross it. There’s a new bridge beside it that seems to be taking too long to build. And then there’s the long stretch from Nagpayong, Pasig to Lower Bicutan, Taguig which remain in bad condition. The new section along the lakeside is already usable for Pasig-bound traffic but needs to be allowed to carry two-way traffic for the older section to be rehabilitated. C-6 is becoming a major alternative route for a lot of travelers from Rizal to and from Makati and Taguig (esp. BGC). It needs to be improved immediately as it can help decongest the Ortigas Ave. – C5 route that most Rizalenos use to go to their workplaces.

There are hazardous worksites along Sumulong Highway. These are related to current drainage works and construction of pedestrian facilities (sidewalks) along the highway. Travelers can see the steel reinforcing bars (rebars) sticking out and posing risks to road users. Following are some photos we took as we traversed the stretch near La Montana, Palos Verdes and Cavaliers Village.

Highway drainage works along Sumulong Highway

Steel reinforcing bars sticking out of the drainage works along the Masinag-bound side of Sumulong Highway.

More hazardous worksites

Unmanned and unfinished worksite along Sumulong Highway. Pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists seem unfazed by the hazard posed by the rebars.

These pose dangers to most road users and especially motorcyclists and cyclists who may experience a spill that can lead to riders being impaled by the rebars. The contractor definitely is violating safety codes in as far as construction sites are concerned and these are in plain view of the public. The DPWH as well as the local government of Antipolo City should act immediately and decisively in order to prevent untoward incidents concerning such worksites. There should be measures such as physical barriers that would protect road users against such hazards. There are currently none.

I had not been to Baguio City for quite some time until June of 2016 (last year). And so I took a lot of photos of the roads between Metro Manila and Baguio including the three expressways (NLEX, SCTEX and TPLEX) and Marcos Highway. I have only posted photos of Marcos Highway ( a lot of them) and haven’t come to downloading photos of TPLEX that I have taken during my first time along the entire stretch at the time. To sort of make up for the backlog, I am posting the following photos of Kennon Road that I took almost 7 months ago. I assume most if not all roadworks along Kennon Road that some of the following photos show are already completed. I will no longer write captions for each of the photos but there are many landmarks shown here that can help the reader in his/her sense of direction and orientation. The following photos are of Kennon Road from Rosario, La Union to Baguio.

Still on Marcos Highway, the following photos complete this feature from my most recent trip to a city dubbed as the summer capital of the Philippines. This is the third part of the series on this major road to/from Baguio City, and sections pretty much show very similar characteristics as the previous ones in the preceding posts. Its been a while since the Part 2 of this series and since then, an additional section of the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX) has been opened further cutting down travel time between Manila and Baguio to 4 hours.

We start with a series of curves. Here is a section complete with signs and markings to guide and protect road users.

The approach to this curve reveals the uneven terrain on which the road was built.

These row houses and their driveways seem too close to the road

That’s a poorly placed driveway right in the middle of the curve

Many motorists tend to overtake slower moving vehicles via the opposing traffic lane. Here is a bus undertaking a passing maneuver at a curve!

Rockslide – these are frequent along mountain roads such as Marcos Highway. They are even more frequent along Kennon Road and Naguilian Highway.

Yet another section this time showing a reverse curve.

Here are a few more of the big bikes we encountered on our trip down from Baguio. These are of the same group of bikers in Parts 1 and 2.

Many sections of Marcos Highway have excellent sight distance and have usable, paved shoulders.

There is significant truck traffic along Marcos Highway. These, especially the loaded ones, often slow down traffic. In certain cases, trucks form platoons making it difficult to pass them.

I was not surprised to see a school along the highway since there are many communities along the road. This is a good example of standard signs and markings including a pedestrian crossing.

The curve is not a good location for a home.

The pavement at this section is intriguing as the road seems to have had a different orientation in the past. I suspect this was formerly a paved bay (for emergency stops or for loading/unloading passengers) in what used to be an unpaved shoulder.

The position of this driveway is quite risky and motorists from both the highway and the driveway will be blind to each other.

The section shows also what looks like a bay along the inner (left in the photo) side of the highway. Note that the shoulder is rather narrow along the ridge-side (right).

Curve sections like this offer picturesque views but are actually are treacherous. The barriers are supposed to prevent vehicles from ‘flying’ out of the highway. Their designs should arrest large, heavy vehicles that may lose control and collide with the barriers.

Marcos Highway offers many breathtaking views and excellent sight distance along many portions.

This is the final stretch of Marcos Highway that terminates at the intersection with the Manila North Road, which is part of AH-26.

To open September, I continue on the feature on Marcos Highway. Following are more photos I took on our way back to Manila from a short vacation in Baguio.

Many sections of Marcos Highway have some form of protection against landslides or rock slides. Note the concrete faces fences along the left in the photo.

There are many structures along the highway including houses and stores

The mountain limits sight distance along curves like this.

We encountered this group of motorcyclists heading up to Baguio on what appeared to be what is termed as “big bikes”, that typically are the more expensive ones, too. Other photos in this series will show these motorcycles. I lost count of them while we were traveling the opposite direction.

This seems to be a popular stop for hungry travelers. The location though and its driveway are not at all desirable from the highway engineering perspective.

Combination of signs to guide motorists along this sharp curve.

Curved sections like this one offer breathtaking views of the mountains.

Shoulders may function as space for emergency stops including for breakdowns or changing tires. Full shoulders allow for stopped vehicles to be completely clear of the traveled way. That is, they don’t pose as obstacles that traffic would need to evade.

More examples of poorly located establishments along a curve

The road seems to disappear in the mountains

Another home along the highway and right at one of the curves. This one seems to be wisely located behind the barriers though its pretty obvious where their driveway is located.

Conspicuous location for a religious site along the highway

More motorcyclists and their big bikes

Barriers along both side of the highway seem sturdy enough to keep vehicles from flying off the road in case their drivers/riders lose control. This section offers enough to satisfy sight distance requirements and noticeably does not feature double yellows like the other photos in this post.

A residential community along the highway including this big house just clear of the shoulder.

Another community including a home atop the mountain. The barriers appear to be newly constructed along with the PCC paved shoulders. These would have to be painted for them to be visible to motorists especially at night-time or when visibility is poor.

The 23rd Annual Conference of the Transportation Science Society of the Philippines (TSSP) was held at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman last August 8, 2016. It was hosted by the National Center for Transportation Studies (NCTS), which for some time was practically inactive in its dealings with the society. The conference was a very successful one with more than 170 participants, mostly students from the undergraduate programs of Mapua Institute of Technology (MIT), De La Salle University (DLSU) and UP Diliman.

The Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference contains 22 technical papers, which I have already listed in a previous post showing the technical program for the conference. The link is to the current website of the TSSP hosted by NCTS. Those wishing to have copies of the papers may download them directly from the link. Meanwhile, those interested in the presentations should contact the authors. Their contact information are stated in the paper and it is ethical to get the nod of the authors for their presentation file as these still fall under what can be defined as their intellectual property. I am aware of people who tend to get presentation slides and then pass them of as their work when they use the slides or the data/information therein. There are proper ways for citations of references and sources but sadly such ways are not observed by many.

A highlight of our recent road trip to and from Lucena, Quezon via the Rizal – Laguna – Quezon route is the impressive roadside views of the new Pillila Wind Farm. The array consists of 27 turbines, more than the number in Bangui, Ilocos Norte. Following are a few photos of the turbines of the farm which has a total capacity of 5.2 Megawatts. I noticed though that many of the turbines were not running so the capacity is likely not reached and the output highly varies depending on the season and time of day.

There are two access points from the national highway to the wind farm. Via these access roads, one can get near the wind turbines to get photos including ‘selfies’ with the turbines as background, just like those trending photos posted on social media taken at the Bangui Wind Farm.

The Philippines needs more of these clean energy sources. The promotion and spread of such types of energy generation should be able to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. This would be good in the long run and also for transportation since there are already many initiatives for electric vehicles. E-vehicles are not necessarily zero contributors to air quality and ultimately to climate change if we consider the sources of electricity when these vehicles re-charge their batteries.